Song Review: Snuper – You In My Eyes

I can’t remember a time when a group’s music has fallen off my personal bias list as quickly as Snuper’s. The group went from releasing two of my top three singles of 2017 to churning out an album so faceless and unappealing that I choose to pretend it doesn’t exist at all. And now, they’ve doubled down on that misstep. You In My Eyes (내 눈에는 니가) is what happens when you run a poll to select your next single, but you don’t have a sample size large enough to make the voting meaningful.

This was a flawed idea from the start — releasing a months-old b-side never designed for promotion as the title track to an album devoid of any new songs (no, Korean translations of Japanese tracks don’t count). But it was made more problematic by being the result of a Makestar fan poll — one of those “you can cast a vote every hour” affairs that only encourage a few dedicated users to stuff the ballot box. As sad as it is to say, Snuper just don’t have a fanbase large enough to make this kind of poll anything more than an exercise in self-satisfaction.

And so, we get You In My Eyes — one of the most generic offerings from their spring album Blossom. The song (like Tulips) was composed by Obros, who seem intent on wiping any of the unique retro appeal Sweetune gave Snuper’s discography prior to this year. To be fair, the instrumental has been given a slight tweaking for this re-release, though the differences aren’t all that noticeable. The chorus feels just as lethargic as it did in April. The irritating “whoop whoop” and “yeah yeah” affectations feel even more constant and unconvincing. It’s fine to change directions. A group can’t simply repeat the exact style over and over and expect success. But with this and Tulips, Snuper have found themselves in the mushy middle, unable to commit to anything remotely memorable.

I’ve been a massive Snuper’s fan since Platonic Love, and probably their only over-40 non-Korean supporter in the whole world. But even my 20+ years of experience in showbiz and marketing field don’t let me understand what the hell is happening with them after their participation in The Uni+. Unfortunately – as always – they didn’t leave any trace of them, but it couldn’t be that bad if we consider that not even UNB and UNI.T made it at all.
The problem is that after the program they came back without any kind of concept to empower their image and/or charisma and/or fanbase and/or anything else. I can be happy to see that their growth doesn’to go in the dark/EDM/trap direction, but maybe it’s because there’s not being any growth at all. I mean: they’re still the 5 tiny, pretty and cute rookies they were in the Platonic Love. Over and over.
Unfortunately, the KPop scene is plenty of tiny, pretty and cute rookies. And unfortunately most of them make (much) more than 15K views on YouTube in 24hours.
As long as I deeply loved their Sweetune’s productions, now I hope they will disband soon: I’m so sad and tired to see them completely fail again and again.
If their agency has no idea about making them evolve, then it’s better for everyone to stop the story right now.

I’m joining all of you guys. I’m also sad and disappointed. With every release I feel more scared about the possibility of them disbanding. I still have hope that they might return with their amazing previous style (The star of stars was legit of one of my favorite songs in kpop), but if it didn’t work for them before, why would they try again with the same thing?
Luckily, they are doing decent in Japan and I like their Japanese discography. Not as much as everything they released before The Unit, but honestly I still prefer that over their disbandment.